


chemical spill

by asphaltworld



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Comic Book Shop, M/M, pretty fluffy, small town
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:09:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17568839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphaltworld/pseuds/asphaltworld
Summary: The darkest secret of the freelance art world is that furry commissions are some of the best-paying gigs. Gerard needs money, so he does what he can. You can only draw so many enormously bulging tiger crotches before burning out, though.Maybe it's time to get a Real Job.





	1. Chapter 1

Gerard wakes up a little drunk. 

He stretches out in his dusty bed. It’s a Saturday, so whatever. He hears someone practicing the accordion from some neighbor’s yard, god bless. It’s fucked up how the process of learning how to play music inflicts serious mental and emotional harm upon those around you. 

He catches a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror despite his best efforts, and the black crow’s nest on his head makes him avert his eyes more determinedly. There’s still time to make himself presentable. Or... for more vodka. There’s a little left. Sitting in the hot, airless carriage house on his grandma’s property, he kind of wonders what to do with the rest of the day for a minute. Gerard’s thoughts are swimming around all sludgy in his head. Better drink some water first. 

He’s standing by the sink gulping down a glass of gross tap water when he hears the yelling. Some guys outside are making a scene, he guesses. Somebody’s finally making a scene that somehow reaches his remote little backyard dwelling. Arguing in the street, in this no-class neighborhood with yards full of plants and loud music on the weekends, live or not.

It’s no shock that people are yelling, but usually it doesn’t get so close to Gerard’s place. He reluctantly pokes a head out just to make sure he’s not gonna be collateral damage. That’s all he means by it. He tries to avoid following in the gossipy footsteps of his elders. 

When he goes outside he’s greeted by piles of full plastic bags. Right. He could make a good bit of cash back from the impressive trash bags full of bottles and cans but he doesn’t ever get himself together to haul it out to the big, messy recycling center. Whoops.

Immediately he gets an impression of this flashy guy with tight jeans and combat boots and kind of a passably hip look going on. That’s what keeps him out there a few seconds longer. The fuck is this guy doing here, he thinks? Do I really stay in so much I missed hot young college kids moving in or whatever? Fuck. 

“People are fucking staring, Frank!” the other guy says. 

“Of course they are, all the old ladies have their gossip fix for the next couple of weeks. I don’t care.” 

“Yeah, and who the hell is that?” He points behind the one who is apparently Frank, to Gerard who’s watching through the chain link fence that faces the alley area. He chose the wrong time to show his face, obviously.

Frank turns around, but not in a hurry. Just a casual turn. “What do you want?” he calls out.

“Really nothing,” Gerard blurts, clumsy and too fast. He holds up his hands a little to show his pure intentions, or something. He hates this.

“Thought so,” said guy #2. Frank doesn’t say anything else to Gerard. He’s focused. 

He turns to crawl back into his little house, stops to mess with some of the overgrown foliage out back. Wonders if Frank saw his fucked up hungover face. Gerard keeps listening, obviously. He needs to know if shit’s going to go down in his backyard.

They get back into it and the argument is... romantic? That’s why guy #2 is freaked out. Oooooh. Other gays? In this neighborhood? He thought they all would have left as soon as they got jobs or got into college or whatever magical wave of adulthood could take them away from this dull and sorta conservative hometown. Gerard’s kind of reeling a little bit. He bets all the old ladies are too. Potentially for different reasons. 

He shuffles back through the yard, as slowly as possible. 

Gerard bites his already ragged nails, a bad habit, and listens. His door is still propped open even though Eau D’Cat Pisse is wafting in. He wants to hear the local gay drama he didn’t even know existed, and he fucking will, social mores and politeness be damned. 

He tunes back in to hear: “I’m not going to coddle your fucking ass. Let’s get that straight. I’m not your mom and I’m not your maid and I can’t be supporting you your whole life. Like, sucking your dick and making bomb-ass food isn’t enough? You can wash your own shorts, you can sweep. I have way more work hours than you anyway. I’m gonna throw your computer out the window one of these days.”

Gerard winces a little, and thinks about his own shortcomings. Is he a pig like this guy? He tries to keep his mess out in the back, not in his grandma’s house. She’s got enough to worry about. Like him, like his dad. He really should work more.

“Frank, come on, let’s just go inside,” guy #2 pleads.

“No! You know what? Give me your keys!” Frank is firm. He’s tough even though he’s kind of small. 

“What about my stuff?” guy #2 says.

“Fuck your stuff, man!” He pauses. “I’ll send it over. Maybe Farah can pass it to you at work.”

“Uh, no she can’t.” Guy #2 looks a little ashamed, for the first time.

“Christ. Lemme guess why.” He doesn’t bother saying it out loud. Gerard wonders. 

“The boss... he was a goddamn dickhead anyway, did you ever meet him?” Ah.

“Farah loves him,” Frank shot back. “And he loves her. Because she does her job.”

Guy #2 is silent.

“Jesus. You know, I’m glad everybody heard this so no one else fucks around with you. Hear that, guy? I bet you’re still listening, motherfucker. Stay away from this one.” 

Gerard doesn’t respond and hopes nothing comes of it. Frank could just hop over the fence if he really wanted to make something of it. But he probably doesn’t. Did Frank instantly peg him as gay or is he just ranting? Lots to process here.

“Give me the goddamn keys, Bert.” So that’s his name.

There’s a loud jangling noise hitting the pavement. 

“Keep ‘em, then,” Bert yells. “Fuck you and fuck your shitty-ass cooking.” He yells a little more, mostly wordless angry stuff, and his voice recedes into the distance.

Damn. Brutal. Gerard makes it a goal never to let that scale of public messy breakup happen to him. He’s been undignified enough already in his short life. Well, maybe not so short? If life expectancies in the US keep dropping like they have been... He could already be middle-aged and not even know it. Anyway, he has shit to do, no matter how much shit other people give him for lying around. 

He turns back to a commission for some weird ratfucker. Furry porn, drawing it. Yeah. That’s why it’s so good he has this tiny little place to himself even though he uses the kitchen and stuff at his grandma's. At least he can tack up weird porn on the walls and scrutinize it for anatomical accuracy and maximum oily shine and all that. LupineHero040692 has messaged him asking for a quote on some truly niche stuff. He fires off a response, aiming high because there are, like, backgrounds and multiple characters involved and half the people on the website would totally butcher something so demanding. By the looks of the profile, LupineHero can afford it. If not, they can try to talk him down. 

G’s profile specifies nothing illegal and nothing underage. Anything else goes, and thank god for that because the highest paying gigs are bizarre and inscrutable and sometimes they barely seem sexual. 

This is a sweet gig, by his standards, but he guesses health insurance would be even sweeter. He thinks about Hunter S. Thompson getting fired from newspapers and Oprah and the other people from that goddamn Buzzfeed late bloomers article when he inner dialogue gets too loud and circular and panicked. Lots of people don’t have steady work by this age. Lots of people aren’t doing their best work in their early 20s, he thinks fervently. Yeah. Let’s focus on that. 

Eventually he goes in to talk to his grandma. She asks if he heard all that. He totally did. He dishes on the parts she didn’t hear. It’s only fair. He thinks guiltily, fleetingly, about Frank’s privacy, but he ought to know about living in a neighborhood like this. He probably does. Anyway, she would hear it from someone else eventually.

“What a mess,” she says when they finish comparing notes. 

“I know, right?” G says. “Who is that guy anyway?” he asks, casually. 

“The girly one?”

Uh. “Yeah.” He goes with it because there’s only so much you can teach a grandparent, and anyway he really wants to know. Grandma’s just as bad as the rest of them, huddling by the open windows and shit. It’s her motivation to update her hearing aids. 

“I think he’s staying in that house, you know the big yellow one? It’s so old, but the city paid for a new foundation for it, so it’s a lot nicer than it used to be. Missy wanted to have it painted but I told her it would just be a waste, wait a few years. She’s owned that house since her mother died, you know? Her sisters fought her like hell for it but she was the one who was there at the end. Her great-grandson moved in with her, I think it’s that boy.” 

“Oh. That’s so funny,” he says even though that news is dry as hell to him. He’s heard that bit about the house plenty of times before. So Frank’s somebody’s great-grandson, so what. He barely knows Missy. “Do you want me to pick something up for dinner?” 

She looks pleased. “Now that you ask...” 

Gerard drives across town to get her her favorite chicken meal from the diner. He starts getting a little jealous of his new neighbor. He’s never lived with anybody before. Not in a relationship way. He stayed on a date’s couch for a few days once, but that puts him more in the pathetic deadbeat Bert camp than the righteous fury Frank one so he tries not to think about it. 

\---

“Ugh,” Frank says, loudly, when he sees Gerard come through the door and the little bell tinkles and all the other people who don’t have 9-5 jobs and hang out in thrift stores look up for a second to see him, too. It’s not really worth their while, today, he’s just in black denim and tennis shoes.

So it looks like Frank recognizes him. Shit.

Gerard grimaces but he’s here to look at some records, rude guys be damned. He starts as far away from Frank as possible, but the selection’s not that huge so he’s only a few feet away. 

“Enjoy the show the other day?” Frank probes.

“Not really, man, it looked like that sucked. Sorry,” Gerard says. He aims for sympathetic and nice. Honestly, he’s burning up with curiosity and he hopes Frank confides just a little. People do that with him. It’s that baby face, he thinks. He looks harmless, even dressed all in black and with a weird haircut.

“It was a long time coming,” Frank says. He turns his attention to the dusty crates. “Even before I moved down here.” 

Gerard decides to push his luck and ask questions.  
“So you just moved?” 

“Yeah, are you the welcome committee?” he sneers, but there’s no real venom in it.  
“I could be.” He’s flipping through the dusty records, now, and they kind of fan dust up at him. His eyes water. The store has the same albums from Boz Scaggs, Engelbert Humperdinck, Neil Diamond as every other thrift store. He spots The Thompson Twins. 80s pop is harder to come by so he considers it for half a second. “I’m Gerard.” 

“Yeah, gonna make me feel at home with the local gay community?”

Gerard snorts. He flips through country albums and a few Best Of compilations from the 60s. Fucking nothing good.

“That’s not my scene anyway,” Frank says.

“Evidently. Hey, how can you tell?” Gerard asks, gesturing to his chest. 

“About the gay?” Frank scoffs a little.

“Uh, yeah.” Gerard’s pretty curious. His “community” is mostly limited to hookup apps and the internet weirdos that buy art from him. He feels kind of embarrassed to be asking but he can’t stop himself. He abandons the pretense of sifting through the crates.

Frank looks him over. It’s not a checking-him-out look, and Gerard is a little disappointed.  
“Your shoes? The whole look? The way you stand? Not sure, man, I’m taking a risk here.”

“Don’t worry, you were right,” Gerard reassures him and laughs awkwardly. 

“Maybe it was the living in your grandma’s backyard,” Frank adds, meanly and knowingly. 

“What?”

“Our grandmas, they go way back,” Frank says.

“Jesus. Were you asking about me?” His mouth twists downward as he thinks about that and looks back down at the records.

Ah. He finds one from some girl band from the 80s. It might be good background music for working. They have incredible streaks of blush across their cheekbones and hair teased outside the bounds of the record cover. He tucks it under his arm.

“No need to do that, trust me. I got a primer on everybody in the neighborhood. You were just the most memorable.” I better be, Gerard thinks.

He wonders if she told him about all his glowing potential and how now he’s wasting away on his grandma’s property barely making ends meet.

“So you’re new in town.”

“I was living in Philly for a while? Things didn’t work out that well. Grandma Misericordia has a huge house and needs someone around to change lightbulbs and stuff, so it seemed like a good place to crash.” 

Gerard nods. That’s more or less his own situation.  
“We just call her Missy.” He continues, “So that guy moved over here from fucking Philadelphia? Jesus.” 

“He knows people here too,” Frank says, unmoved. “He just wanted an opportunity to get back over here.”

“So Philly’s fucking awful and nobody wants to live there,” Gerard muses.

“Mmm-hmmm. Great place to have a mid-20s crisis, though. In case you were looking.”

“Ha, funny.” He’s pretty much skimmed through all the records, except the crate Frank is slowly, painstakingly hogging. What does he expect to find, anyway? “Look, I’ll see you around I guess.”

“Seems pretty inevitable,” Frank chirps out. At least he’s smiling.  
\---

Back in his bedroom, Gerard gnaws on his fingers and thinks about sucking dick. It’s been maybe a year. He misses it, the heat and the pressure and sore lips in the aftermath. It must just be the inevitable thoughts that come with meeting somebody technically eligible, about the same age as him, somewhat hot if a little too precious about his appearance. Like, all that wax in his hair is kind of fucking lame. The overall effect is pretty alluring, though, Gerard has to admit. Those big green-gold eyes and the guy’s easy confidence. 

He lies back and runs his fingers over his stomach, experimentally. Is he gonna get hard? He totally is. Fuck. His own art is staring down at him from all around, but it doesn’t really do it for him. Huge, cartoonish muscles on like a wolfman or tiger aren’t really his bag. They’re just profitable. It’s hard to find that in real life anyway, especially as a quiet nerdy type. Maybe it’d be easier if he turned into a gym rat... He’s more into the short and stocky type that wears tight jeans stretched over a rounded ass and thighs. He thinks for a minute about getting pounded, but the tension in his dick makes him switch fantasies to sinking into somebody warm and smooth-skinned, imagining hairy legs clamped around his middle. Fucking someone’s muscled, bouncy ass. He moans a little, getting into it. 

His mind wanders and all of a sudden, in his head, he’s pulling down jeans and boxer briefs, Frank’s hard dick is slapping his belly. He wants to mouth over it, taste salt and body wash and whatever else. He really wants to see that mouth all slack and wet and flushed. Really, he has a pretty face even if his haircut is kind of stupid. Frank’s voice is great, low but still youthful and he bets he would be loud in bed, if his argument voice is anything to judge by. He squeezes his dick and imagines Frank beneath him. Frank looks solid but just soft enough for it to be heaven running his hands over his chest, his stomach as he fucks him. Gerard’s gonna come soon. “Yeah,” he grunts out, by himself. “Fuck.” He’s panting, breaths ragged until he comes in a hot white streak across his stomach.

He comes down from that post-orgasmic high and sees the mess of his room. Paper everywhere and stacks of books, but the worst of it is probably the unholy mix of dirty and not-as-dirty laundry mounded on the floor. Gerard imagines bringing Frank into this place, with all the progress shots of oiled up anthropomorphic animals. Goddamn. He’s several kinds of socially unacceptable. At least Frank’s never gonna come over anyway. It would be so weird to be friends with someone who actually lives in the neighborhood.

\--  
Ray’s sitting on a beanbag, tuning both their guitars.

“So I met this guy,” Gerard says, going for a nice syrupy opening.

“Hmm,” Ray says. He’s tuning his guitar. He likes to play out here, unattached to a house or apartment building where people might complain about the noise. In return he teaches Gerard basic chords in between jamming out. “Did you like, actually talk to him?”

“He was breaking up with his boyfriend out in the alley,” Gerard said. “Yeah, they caught me sneaking out to listen to them and scolded my ass. That counts as talking, right?”

Ray snickered. “Sounds like a cool guy. At least you know he’s single. Hey, do you have an extension cord? I need another plug for this...” 

“Yeah, let me go find one.” He gets up and roots around. “This guy, I ran into him at Charity’s Place on record discount day. I wonder if I’m gonna keep seeing him all over town.”

“That would be weird. Did you mind?”

“Seeing him? I don’t know. I made a bad first impression. He seems very tuned into the scene, though. Like, so cool with all his pins and patches and stuff.” Gerard rolls his eyes a little. He can’t help it. 

Ray tilts his head while he wrestles with guitar cables and a bunch of shit Gerard doesn’t fully understand. “Too cool for you?”

“He just seems oh so conscious of it, I dunno. He even has hand tattoos. Like, tons of them.” 

“Those can be sick, though,” Ray says. “What are they?”

“All I noticed was one hand HALLO, the other hand WEEN.” 

“Oh, wait, fuck. Don’t tell me his name is Frank?” 

“That’s it.” He knew there had to be something up with this guy.

“Okay. See, I knew him in high school. He went to Baker with me.” Gerard whips his head around.

“So what’s the dirt on him? Even my grandma knew nothing.”

Ray convinces him to go to the bar instead, before he’ll tell him all about Frank. Gerard knows he should save money, but he’s so goddamn bored from staying inside his tiny place all the time he agrees. He loses all sense where alcohol is concerned, so he sets a budget for himself. 4 drinks. At this place that should be under thirty bucks. 

A few hours later he’s giggling with Ray and a couple of strangers who joined them at the table. Gerard’s not good with names. He feels a little uncomfortable and thinks about going to get another rum and coke. Before he gets up, though, he remembers his self-imposed limit. Gerard spends a good few minutes trying to count glasses before giving up and just getting another.

\--

It’s hot and he feels dizzy even though he’s lying down. Right away Gerard thinks of his credit card. Oh, fuck. Drained bank account, Gerard’s an idiot. He still needs to pay for the Wifi because his grandma doesn’t exactly use it. It’s a business expense, he writes it off on his taxes. But it’s totally vital to his whole operation. The whole porn aspect makes it uncomfortable as fuck to sort files and convert them and whatever else in public, at coffee places or wherever else with free internet access. 

Being so broke all the time fucking sucks, even though it comes with the freedom to abuse his body however he wants, with all-night movie marathons or drinking stupid booze. He needs... he needs a Real Job. It fucking sucks but there it is. The last one he had wasn’t that bad except for answering all the phone calls from deaf old people and rude teenagers, and then also dealing with customers in person. Just 60% of the job. He could try it out again, maybe apply online.

He can’t move to his computer, though, not without puking over vital sketches and other objects, so he just has to lie there and feel the regret. It’s not the end of the world, he thinks. Maybe he can sell some things. This could be a sign from above that he has too many collectibles and he needs to relax his grip on his material possessions.

It’s about an hour before he actually crawls out of bed and checks his bank account. Once the website loads, all the tension from fear of being totally broke or overdrafted leaves his body. He’s got $73.45. Enough to cover the bill and maybe have tacos before his next commission comes in. But fuck, he cannot be taking these chances. He’s an adult. He is, no matter his lack of professionalism and poor choices. 

The Real Job thing might be something to pursue. He hates working at the goddamn register, though. 

Gerard starts by talking to Ray, who’s been working at guitar center for almost two years now. He’s in good standing there. He knows just how to wrangle the kind of assholes that sometimes show up there, and he’s this endless font of knowledge for non-assholes, so they all think he’s awesome. And he is.

Ray shoots him down right away. Gently, relatively considerately, but Gerard’s still on the ground. “Really? You can’t do anything even though you’re like, assistant manager to the assistant manager?”

Ray looks a little sad but doesn’t change his mind. “I’m sorry, man, but I seriously think it would be a bad fit. Is Green Light hiring? You know their stock better than half those fucking stoners anyway.”

“They never are,” Gerard says a little wistfully. Working at a comic shop would be the final stroke that would solidify his nerd credibility but you have to basically be best friends with the owner for a shot at one of those jobs.

Eventually, Gerard exhausts all the medium-shitty potential job options except Green Light. He doesn’t have much hope, but it’s only a few blocks away so he cruises over to check out the situation. 

He walks in, trying to stand up straight and open his eyes a little wider and look friendly, when he sees Frank hanging out near the front. Then he spots a nametag and realizes Frank is working there. How the hell he swung this job when he moved here like two weeks ago is beyond Gerard, but he doesn’t even think about that because for the first time, he spots an in at the comic book store. 

“Hey, neighbor,” he says. Frank turns, a big fake smile plastered on that dims about 40 watts as soon as he recognizes Gerard.

“Hey, man. Should have known you’d show up here sooner rather than later.” He pauses. “Can I help you with anything?”

Gerard takes the plunge. “I, well, I stopped by to see if there were any openings here. I’m interested in a job.” Fuck! He was caught off-guard enough to slump into his normal body language and he wasn’t even being Retail Fake-Nice. Not a good start.

“I’ll have to check with the manager,” Frank says. Gerard nods, turns to stare into space as Frank walks away. He thinks about how his chances weren’t great to begin with, no need to freak out over ruined opportunities. 

“He says there’s nothing open. I mean, to be more specific than I maybe should, he says they’re looking to hire people we already know.” A subtle eye-roll there.

Frank’s disarming honesty keeps pulling Gerard in. It also makes him think maybe he has a chance at convincing Frank otherwise. “Do you think you could vouch for me?”

“What? I don’t know you.” He raises an immaculate eyebrow.

Gerard gives it one more go. “You know enough. I’m sure my grandma has complained to yours about how my boxes of comics are taking up all the fucking space in her garage. She says so to everybody, I’m surprised we’re not plagued by like, comic thieves.” Frank laughs a little. “So I know my shit, is what I’m saying. Ask anybody.” 

“For a fellow queer,” Gerard goes on, because nobody else seems to be in earshot. Maybe he shouldn’t have used that word, if Frank’s gonna get all conservative about it. He’s betting he won’t, though. “Give me a shot, seriously. I kind of need this job.”

Frank scrunches up his mouth, then nods. 

“Don’t make me regret helping you.” He looks Gerard dead in the eyes. “I’ll ambush you and beat your ass in that alley behind your house.” 

Gerard nods back solemnly, refusing to laugh. “Thanks so much.”


	2. Chapter 2

Gerard tries not to hope too hard, but his heart rate increases anyway when he sees Green Light’s number is calling his cell. He has it saved to his phone from the 5th or so time he asked them to reserve a book for him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Gerard? I heard you were interested in a job over at Green Light.” The voice is deep and familiar but it doesn’t sound like the owner to him, so Gerard wracks his brain trying to figure it out, until it continues with “We are pleased to tell you that thanks to a tip from our hardest-working, handsomest clerk, we are able to extend a job offer to you.” Frank’s put-on voice works its way up to a truly ridiculous trill, and Gerard’s finally able to recognize it. 

“Oh my God! Seriously?” he asks. He’s afraid Frank’s fucking with him. 

“Yeah, they actually want to offer it to you. They even let me be the one to call about it.” 

“Wow. Kind of weird, but cool. I think I’ve applied like three times before.” 

“You should come by later so we can work out the details with scheduling and stuff.”

“Yeah! Yeah. How about half an hour before closing? Might be better to work on it when there’s less people in the store.”

“Sure. See you then, man.” 

Gerard shakes a fist in the air after Frank hangs up. “Fuck yes,” he hisses. Freelance life can be such a fucking grind. He sits down with his bank statements and doodles on them, just processing as he thinks about how he can bulk up his savings with his work at Green Light.

The next thing he does is call Ray and let him know that things worked out.

“Ray! Ray, man, I have good news. Partly thanks to you.” 

“Oh?” Gerard can hear someone playing loudly and badly in the background and he feels a surge of fondness for the guy. “What is it?”

“I went and asked at the Green Light, and Frank works there -- weird I never saw him there, right?-- and he got me the job, basically.” 

“Hey, that’s awesome. You’ve wanted this for years, right?” Ray’s voice is warm and comforting and a total contrast against the chaos of the shredding in the background.

“Yeah! Like, I knew it was a possibility, but I never would have tried again if you hadn’t totally ruined all my hopes of being the worst Guitar Center employee of all time. I just needed that push, man.”

“I like to provide reality checks when I can,” Ray says. “I’m happy for you, though. You can finally be with your people.” He waits a beat, then says, “And there’s the guy.” 

“Hm. Yeah, him. Almost forgot.”

“Okay, sure.” Ray laughs. “Let’s hope you have a better poker face with him than with me. Anyway. You wanna come out two Fridays from now? Now that you can actually afford to be tearing around town, painting it red, whatever it is you do when you wander away from the rest of us. I called Mikey already. He’s in.” 

“Uh, for what?”

“Some kind of tabletop gaming fest thing. He said you’d be interested. I dunno, there’ll be pizza and shit.” 

“I guess that’s as good a place as any to finally hear from Mikey again. That flighty little bastard. Sure. Hey, are you allowed to take personal calls like this?”

“That’s funny, someone’s walking over to me probably to ask that exact same question right now,” Ray says. He changes his tone of voice and goes, “Yes, we do carry those. Thanks for calling Guitar Center!” The phone clicks off. Gerard laughs and goes over the conversation fondly in his head as he gets ready to head over to the store to talk to Frank. 

\--  
A few days later, Gerard enjoys his last night as a free man by getting high by himself, walking to the corner store and filling his backpack with a bunch of weird, shitty snacks to eat and then going home to watch something familiar and demolish them. It’s fucking great, made even better because he cleared his schedule and finished all commissions so he could actually enjoy it.

Before he falls asleep his high takes a contemplative turn and he thinks about how he’s at a crossroads in his life, like, things did not go the way he expected them to at all. But he doesn’t hate his life that much and he doesn’t know if he needs those things he thought he did before. Here he is, excited about getting behind a register with some pretty guy he barely knows. Maybe getting out of the house will be good for him. The money will help out, definitely. 

\---

“These ones look better on your thighs,” Frank greets him, on his second day. He’s leaning on the counter with his chin on his left hand, totally spaced out. 

Jesus. That’s balancing on the razor’s edge of inappropriate, he thinks. Gerard looks down to see he pulled his tightest pair of black jeans off the ground to wear today. His thighs do look good.

“Uh. Cool.” Gerard does not know the protocol for bored coworker flirting but he’s pretty sure he didn’t handle it too smoothly. “Good to know. I’ll try to stick to these, then.”

Frank just smiles, edging on a smirk. “So. Let’s fuckin’ get you trained!” 

“I thought we did that yesterday?” Gerard asks. 

Frank laughs. “Obviously it has been way, way too long since you’ve worked retail and you need this, really badly. Just by asking that question. Yesterday was just filling out forms, man. Today I’m gonna teach you how to lock things and count things and all that.”

The two of them settled into a long afternoon of counting issues, going over how to count cash in the register, not that Gerard would be doing that just yet, and all the niche knowledge needed to keep the place running. Gerard tries not to touch Frank any more than necessary, but of course they keep bumping knees and grazing fingertips over each other’s forearms and shit.

Gerard has been getting into the swing of retail again. Most of his coworkers are tolerable. He’s surrounded by comics and art books, which is kind of a buffer against the way selling stuff all day sucks at your soul. And what Ray said about everybody being uselessly stoned is only half-true. Myra and Jason are both stoned always, but Beth’s only stoned half the time. Miguel is almost never stoned. But with Frank, it’s honestly hard to tell. 

Sometimes Frank looks so glowy and happy he’s got to be high. Like, no other logical explanation for his dopey smile and inattentiveness, compared to when he’s really alert and catching all Gerard’s arithmetic mistakes. Other times are more obvious, like when he comes out from behind the shop smelling like weed, tobacco and some insane body spray that doesn’t cover up either of those other two scents like he thinks it does. Then he’ll kind of sprawl across the glass counter or rest a hand heavily on Gerard’s lower back or even touch his hair. He just wants to touch everything. Gerard so doesn’t mind. 

\----

Gerard spends like 30 grueling hours a week at the shop, and he’s still doing commissions too. He has less time for them, though, so he’s trying to make the most of the ones he does. That means drawing some highly specific scenes of people’s fursonas, with huge shining paws or whatever they’re into. 

So all of a sudden, Gerard has money in his pocket that isn’t already designated for some future bill. He’s so used to being broke he doesn’t know what people do with their money, when they have it. He’s talking about it to Mikey and Ray at that tabletop game event and they both just look at him. “Ever heard of rent?” Mikey asks. “No joke, that’s where like a good half of my cash goes. Just sucks it right in.”

“It’s an endless cycle,” Ray agrees. “After that, everything else goes so fast.”

“Shit. You guys are so right. I’m an idiot.”

“Pretty much,” Ray agrees. “So, while we’re planning this campaign, what do you guys say to a modern urban setting?”

“Yes!” Gerard shrieks. “Fuck yes!” 

After they do some more planning, Gerard brings them back to the topic he can’t stop thinking about. 

“But, okay, back to the injustice of paying rent. Is it weird if I have no plans to leave Grandma’s house in the foreseeable future?”

Mikey looks at him. “Weird? Yeah. It’s not like, wrong, though,” he says. “You could spin it as a charitable thing. Taking care of her.”

“God, I hate the idea of having a landlord,” he groans. “Look, if I stay with Elena, we both benefit. Isn’t that how society used to be structured anyway? Who says we gotta pay absurd prices to live in tiny boxes next to strangers’ grandmas instead of living in a weird tiny box next to our own grandmas?”

“My desire to get laid,” Mikey says flatly. “I don’t know if I could cope with even the chance of any relative hearing me. Lucky you, that’s not a problem you have to think about.”

He and Ray dissolve into giggles and Gerard just scowls. “She’s basically fuckin’ deaf anyway!”

“Ew.”

“Anyway, I like her. And I help with lifting heavy stuff. You know our parents don’t get along with her?” Gerard says, for Ray’s benefit. “I like her just fine and get to fulfill a civic duty and all that. Helping out old people is the real counterculture.”

Ray claps him on the shoulder. “That’s sweet as hell.”  
\--

“Rent is theft,” he greets his coworkers with during the opening shift the next morning. Beth nods her cherry-red head of hair at him and raises a militant fist. Dan just laughs. “That time of the month again?”

“Fuck no. I live on my grandma’s property.”

“Then why are you bitching?”

“Because landlords provide no useful service to society,” Beth offers, and the two of them get into it right away and Gerard distances himself so he can seem busy and like a good employee. He’s not gonna argue with fucking Dan.

\---

“I need this job, I am glad to have this job, but man,” Gerard says to Frank. “Seriously fuck this.” They’re both there two hours after closing dealing with the aftermath of a local art event the owner agreed to host. “It’s so hard to cope with having a boss. That’s why I spent the past two years living off ramen and bottom-shelf vodka instead of just sucking it up.” 

Frank laughs. “As soon as you find the secret to not having to have a boss anymore, please fucking share it with me. I’m dying to know.”

Gerard doesn’t want to share the full freakish force of his job drawing fetish porn, so he stays vague. “Some commissions pay really well. It was all about learning how to balance different projects. Still pretty much always broke, though.”

Frank was busy checking inventory and didn’t ask any more questions.

“Anyway, fuck you for getting me this job. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“I beg your pardon?” Frank says, turning to fix his eyes on Gerard. “I never promised you a rose garden,” and then he’s singing. Gerard can’t help it, he has to join in. 

“Along with the sunshine,” he belts out, and Frank comes in with “There’s gotta be a little rain sometime!” Frank trails off with humming where he obviously doesn’t know the words. Gerard knows them but he’s content to just listen. Frank’s hair is flopping down into his face and it looks way better than when it’s flicking upwards as usual, and he has some color in his cheeks and he looks happy. It’s nice.

“We sound exactly like two grown men who live with their grandmothers,” Gerard muses. “All those old fuckin’ songs.”

“We’re cultured,” Frank says. “And like. Gay.” 

Gerard feels himself start to flush and wills against it with all his might, but it happens anyway. His face is stained all pink against his black hair. He does his best to pretend he’s not blushing stupidly at a statement of fact and says, “Those tend to go hand in hand, don’t they?”

“They sure fucking do,” Frank says. “Get over here and help me lock up. We’ve done enough for tonight. Let’s get you home.”

Gerard is more than happy to oblige. 

\---

“I know maybe it’s lame to be friends with your coworkers, like, for real, but there’s this thing i’m doing down at the skate shop. A little live show. Saturday.” Frank sounds casual like he always does, but he’s focusing his eyes on the shelves as he tidies them before locking up.

Gerard laughs. “Is it lame? Fuck, I never knew. You’re just so punk.” 

Frank huffs at that, but continues with, “Yeah, so would you want to come? If you don’t already have plans.” He finally meets Gerard’s eyes, and they’re big and hopeful and not as suave or guarded as they usually are. That’s it for Gerard. He wants to see more of that.

“God, a personal invitation. How can I not?” Gerard’s playing it cool, but he’s a little excited that apparently Frank likes him enough to see him outside of the many situations where they’re just thrown together by fate or God or whoever. 

“Yeah. Come and drink some beers and forget about your shitty-cool job that you got thanks to me,” Frank says. “Nice to see you’re still so grateful for that, by the way.”

“Oh my god, dude. You’re gonna hold that over my head forever, aren’t you?”

“I just might.”

Gerard starts to say, “I’ll buy you a drink,” but instead sees an opportunity. He drops to one knee and takes Frank’s hand.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he chants, then struggles his way back into a standing position, using Frank’s firm, tattooed arm to help haul himself up. The warmth of their bodies touching sends a little thrill through him. “I’ll totally come. I have been known to listen to live music now and then.” 

“Awesome. Hey, I know you just made it back onto your feet, but these books go on the bottom shelf.” He hands Gerard a stack.

“Ughh,” Gerard says. “You motherfucker.”

Frank smiles down at him and the angle is weird but Gerard is charmed anyway, of course. He can’t keep himself from thinking about being down on his knees for Frank under different circumstances. He probably wouldn’t have that angelic little grin then.

\--

The club smells a little smoky, even though it’s supposed to be illegal and no one seems to actually be smoking. There are a few sticky tables clustered at the edges of the place but it’s mostly standing room. The stage isn’t so much a stage as a taped-off area of the dancefloor, but Frank and his bandmates are totally commanding it, even as they’re just setting up their gear. 

Gerard gets a drink and then hangs back and watches him work. He’s alone, for now. Mikey agreed to come but he hasn’t shown his bony face yet and it’s not like he’s ever on time. It’s good enough to know he doesn’t have to hang out alone all night like a loser. Gerard nods at a few people but doesn’t pull it together enough to get into a whole conversation. He doesn’t mind.

Frank’s band starts playing and the vibe in the room changes as they drown out most potential for active conversation. It starts not to matter that Gerard’s here by himself, and he cares less.

Frank’s throwing himself around onstage with abandon, and it’s pretty captivating to watch. He’s always been energetic but onstage he’s not fenced in by merchandise and shelves. He does nearly send a mic stand flying, and he manages to smack the singer with his guitar once. The guy barely even looks surprised. But mostly he’s just writhing around, slipping to his knees and lying down and getting back up again. 

The show is pretty fuckin cool, Gerard thinks, but most of all Frank looks super hot up there, mouth slack in concentration and sweating. Gerard’s near the front, close enough to see. His hair covers his eyes so his face is all nose and mouth and piercings. And his mouth hangs open, all spit-shiny. Fuck, man. That mouth is so pink and wet and flushed, he feels his dick plump up a bit. He tosses back the last of his drink but it doesn’t help distract him. He doesn’t know exactly what he even wants from Frank’s mouth besides to touch it. Maybe just slide right in, or maybe something more creative. He could probably figure it out later, if he was given the chance. Gerard is just totally struck dumb by this wave of lust. 

Someone claps him on the shoulder and it’s Mikey, finally making his grand appearance. Great timing. “Late. As. Fuck!” Gerard yells over the music. Mikey shrugs. 

“Actually, they’re only two songs in,” says a stocky guy next to him. Gerard gapes. “It totally felt like longer. Not even in a bad way,” he explains. The guy nods at him, and turns back to the stage.

Gerard endures another five songs of Frank trying to fucking kill him with sheer sloppy sex appeal before they finally finish their set. This is not a totally new development, he thinks, but this is a new level of intensity. Jesus.

By the end of the set Mikey has disappeared, making the rounds and shaking hands, kissing babies, or whatever it is that he does. Frank and his band disappear backstage for a little while, but then Frank emerges and makes his way to the bar. Gerard catches sight of him in his damp white t-shirt and chokes on his beer. After seeing how hot Frank’s performance made him, he switched away from hard liquor, in a rare self-preservational move.

Frank ends up next to him, and Gerard surprises himself by draping an arm over his shoulder.

“You looked fuckin’ great up there,” he says, in what is hopefully a friendly and not lustful tone. “Seriously, all your thrashing around kind of stole the show.” 

“Thanks, man!” Frank beams. Good. He looks genuinely happy and not put off, and he’s not even drunk yet. 

“Buy you a drink?” Gerard says. Frank laughs at that. 

“You are so enthusiastic, man. Yes, you can buy me a fucking drink! Go for it!” He’s smiling.

People come up to Frank, touching his shoulder or arm or whatever, and talking to him about the set, and by the time he’s finished the one Gerard bought for him there’s three more lined up.

“Here,” he says, pushing one over to Gerard. “Take this. Let’s move.” He grabs the other two.

Frank stops them at a bench table near the back exit. 

“Less crowded,” he explains. “I hate getting jostled and spilling my drink.”

“It sucks,” Gerard agrees. They’re both quiet for a minute, but the bar’s bustling around them. 

“Man, how did you never mention this is what you’re into outside of work?” Gerard asked incredulously. “That was great. I wanna come to all your shows.”

“It feels weird to like brag about it, you know? I don’t think I’m hot shit with my small-time band or whatever. Hey, come sit over here so we don’t have to scream at each other. I did enough of that onstage already.” 

Gerard obliges, sliding over to sit closer to him. Their shoulders touch, until he leans away and puts a space between them again.

“Uh.” His brain loses the plot for a second. Frank’s warm, probably pumped full of adrenaline from the show still. The door’s blowing in a chilly breeze. “You are so not small-time, don’t say that.”

“Well, thanks.” Frank leaves it at that. “So do you still do art shit? I know the shop has a way of killing motivation to do anything when you’re off work. But it was a big thing for you, right?”

“Yeah, I still do it. Now I just don’t need it as much to pay my bills. Still lots of people out there willing to pay you to draw weird shit.”

Frank just laughs. They’re almost huddled together, they’re sitting so close. Gerard moves his hand to Frank’s forearm. Why is he so obsessed with them? “Tell me about these,” he asks, trying not to slur.

“Oh god, not you too! Okay, where should I start?”

“With this one.” Gerard’s hand is still there, leaning heavy on his arm. 

“That’s about Catholicism,” Frank says. “Okay, see, I was born Catholic...”

Gerard just listens, as Frank talks about God and being in the choir and all kinds of shit. He’s never this open at work. Of course he fucking isn’t, Gerard thinks. Nobody likes being at work. He’s glad Green Light isn’t his favorite comic store, just the closest. It doesn’t give him the same sense of security anymore, like he used to feel in any comics place. He wants to see more of this Frank.

Gerard’s face is a little numb but every nerve can feel Frank’s hot hand glide down his back, stopping at the sliver of exposed skin just above his jeans. He’s hunched over so the shirt’s riding up. They’re not even talking so much at this point, just leaning against each other. Frank’s hand somehow slides under the shirt a little, creeping higher inch by inch and leaving behind a seriously electric feeling. 

“Last call!” someone yells from behind the bar, what feels like miles away. It breaks the spell, though. The moment before had seemed full of beautiful, sexy possibility but thanks to last fucking call Frank’s pulling his hand away. 

“Oh, damn,” Frank giggles, rolling his shoulders and standing up on wobbly legs. “I did not realize it was that late. I gotta... I gotta go home!”

“Hmm. I guess I do too,” Gerard says innocently. This could go so bad, an almost sober voice in his head pipes up. Do not fuck your new coworker. 

“We live in the same ‘hood, do we not?” Frank reminds him. Shit.

“Yeah, we totally do.” Gerard can’t help but giggle and reach out to touch his shoulder.

Out of nowhere, Mikey swoops in. Gerard just sees a tall skinny shadow and then his stupid hoodie and glasses and shit. “Heyy, Mikes,” he says. Trying not to sound disappointed but he’s sure Mikey sees right through him, as usual.

“I’m crashing at your place tonight, right?” Mikey asks. Uh. This was not part of the plan, was it? God damn it. Did his younger brother spidey-sense kick in somehow?

“Uhm. Really? Sure, man. Whatever my baby brother needs.” He’s going through the five stages of grief, faster than they’ve ever been experienced before. Denial, anger, he feels it all. 

At the same time, the stocky dude who talked to Gerard during Frank’s set shows up. “Frank, let’s get your ass home,” he says. “Not gonna let you pass out in the bushes again, fucker.” Less delicate approach than Mikey, definitely. Maybe it’s warranted. Gerard is easier to wrangle, if Frank’s stage presence is any indicator.

Mikey and James share some kind of look, and Gerard can’t figure out what it means. He’s too drunk and touch-euphoric to care.

“Bye, Gee!” Frank reaches a hand out to him, adorably. Gerard reaches back, but they don’t touch because they’re being pulled in opposite directions. It’s tragic, a scene out of Titanic or a Kate Bush video.

“Yeah Frank, I’ll see you.” Gerard calls out as Mikey steers him away to the exit. James and Frank are lingering inside somewhere.

Once they step outside, Mikey snickers. “Gee, huh? Cute. Who is that guy?”

Gerard plays dumb. “What do you mean?”

“The guy you were all over, dipshit. Or was he all over you? Anyway, you were about to be a really shitty host so I had to stop you. Explain yourself.”

“God,” Gerard moans. “Don’t get me started.” But he tells Mikey all about him anyway, for the cab ride home and then until they pass out, him on his bed and Mikey on the air mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song they sing together lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-eclUz-RYI  
> anyway aren't frank's i'm-playing-guitar faces incredibly hot??

**Author's Note:**

> i debated against making bert the Bad Ex here, because i actually like the used and it reminds me of fics from 2007 where bert is a hideous violent monster. here he's just a normal-grade dick. i decided that it's fun to use names of other figures in bandom, since all this is fictional as hell.
> 
> this is the kind of music i imagined gerard finding at the thrift store: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXWqfxj-mlU  
> unlikely, but more fun to imagine than the boring shit i usually find haha.


End file.
